Baruch Cohen, a Romanian Holocaust survivor who, driven by a commitment to remembrance and the continuity of the Jewish people, spent the last three decades of his life working voluntarily for the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (CIJR), died at age 98 on Sept. 26.
Besides CIJR, Cohen was devoted to making better known the enormity of the Holocaust in his native country and neighbouring Transnistria. For 23 years, he co-ordinated an annual commemoration of the hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews and wrote prolifically on the subject.
Cohen joined CIJR at its founding 30 years ago, and came to its office daily in his capacity as research chair, only reducing his workload when his health declined. He would spend hours poring over the latest news and opinion on the Middle East and Jewish world for the organization’s publications and data bank.
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His greatest delight was working beside young people and, despite what became a seven-decade age difference, they were captivated by his gentle, wise counsel.
His grandson Mark Bergman said Cohen’s greatest pride was the hundreds of letters he kept from students thanking him for opening their eyes to Jewish history.
Last year, Cohen received the National Assembly’s Citizenship Medal for “outstanding achievement in community involvement.”
In nominating his mentor for the citation, Romanian-born Alex Enescu, a CIJR student intern who is not Jewish, said that Cohen has “taught me that even in the darkest places one can still find compassion and generosity.”
It was one of the rare honours that the modest Cohen, a gentleman of the old school, ever agreed to accept.
Despite his discomfort with tributes, Cohen, after a life of relative obscurity became in his latter years a figure of inspiration for his learning, dedication and qualities of kindness, courage and good humour.
After retiring as a company financial officer in 1988, Cohen returned to school to obtain a master’s degree in Jewish studies at Concordia University.
That was during the First Intifada. Concordia professor Frederick Krantz noticed incisive letters to the editor in local newspapers by one Baruch Cohen, who shared Krantz’s outrage over how Israel was being portrayed in the media and concern about the apparent success of the pro-Palestinian camp.
He tracked down Cohen and invited him to join a small group, mostly academics, that would go on to form CIJR, an independent think-tank devoted to defending Israel and public education, operating initially out of Krantz’s basement.
Krantz, who remains director as a volunteer, says CIJR, which relies entirely on private fundraising and largely on volunteers, would not have grown as it has nor gained an international reputation without Cohen.
He calls Cohen a tzadik, or righteous one, and “Hebraic hero,” a role model for his moral courage and intellectual rigour.
Last April, Cohen’s memoir No One Bears Witness for the Witness was launched which recounts how he experienced prewar anti-Semitism in Romania and survived its wartime fascist tyranny, including a pogrom in Bucharest. Cohen endured labour camps, returning only to find so many relatives and friends gone.
After the Second World War, he fled the communist regime for Israel. He and Sonia, his wife of 76 years, and their daughter Malka (Monica) settled in Montreal in 1959.
Cohen carried on with his mission despite the devastating loss of his only child 20 years ago.
“My nightmares have never ceased…But I channel these feelings of despair, convinced that there is a purpose for me to go on giving testimony,” Cohen explained in his memoir.
CIJR president Jack Kincler said, “He had a long and difficult, but also courageous, fulfilling and useful life, a life of service to family, friends, the survivor community, Israel, and the Jewish people…
“Baruch knew that all of us, not only greatly valued him, but loved him very much. He will be deeply missed, but will always be present in our hearts and minds and work.”
Added CIJR fellow Machla Abramovitz: “Baruch was a scholar and a poet who articulated the pain of memory, whether it was the collective pain of the Jewish people seeking to rebuild lives and hopes after the Holocaust or the personal pain of a father who buried his beloved daughter Malca.
“Despite these tragic setbacks, he retained his profound sense of humanity and love for his family and for the Jewish people.”
